Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Cortney Hazelrigg
The movie that I watched was Ursula Levy, she was born in 1935. Ursula doesn’t not remember too much from when she was real young. Ursula lived a very normal life her family owned a textile company and had been in her family for generations. Her uncle and father ended up passing away in 1939 from gang-green in their legs. After the two deaths Ursula’s mother contacted another uncle who at the time was in the United States asking if he knew of anyone who could help and protect her two young children. Ursula’s mother ended up sending the two young children Ursula and her brother George who was five years older to Holland. Ursula’s memories start here when she is on the train to Holland. A funny thing was when she was on the train she was afraid to flush the toilet so she mad her brother go with her to help her flush the toilet. Ursula and her brother were sent to the constanration camps in 1943. There were five children that were sent to the camps and only her and her brother survived. In 1940 Ursula heard planes flying over she said she was excited, but had no idea what it meant. She later went on to talk about when the Germans took over all the little towns in Holland and a Nazi was put in charge of the towns and learned that there were Jewish children living in the towns. The first two children were sent away in 1940 and then the third little girl in 41 and then Ursula and her brother in 1943. The first camp Ursula was sent to was Verst or something like that. She talked about how her and her brother were separated from one another. She also talked about how they were made to take their clothes off and wear something else so they would all match. Ursula also mentioned the Nazi guards and how they would beat people for really no reason at all. Ursula and her brother were saved by Mr. Vansenberg when he came to visit Ursula on her birthday and was talking to the Nazi guard and basically told him that the kids don’t look Jewish at all because their father was catholic and lived in America. This lie was what saved Ursula and her brother from dying at the camp. Ursula and her brother were sent to a house that were all the diamond cutters that were Jewish lived because the Germans wanted to keep them alive to learn the trait so they could cut diamonds. Ursula talked about how the women in her camp were starving to death but how when she would be eating they would never take her food, they would never be mean to her, that they protected her and watched after her and how amazed she was that these poor women who were dying were so nice to her. At the end of the war Ursula was put on a train that would run circles for 13 days. She remembered how at the point they could escape because the train would stop for days, but they all lost the ways to reason and plan things out. What I find so amazing about this story is her attitude she always was talking about the good times, how pretty it was during the spring, and that she always believed they would be free at last. She went through hell and still thought that the experience taught her so much and learned so many life lessons. This is a true story that will touch your heart and makes you feel so grateful for the things we are blessed with everyday.
Words 618
Words 618
Cortney Hazelrigg
The video I watched was Malka Baran. She was born in Warsaw in 1927. Her family consisted of four people and they lived in a small apartment house. Her father owned a printing shop when she was young. When she was in school she attended a private school. Once in the camp she talks about how sick she had gotten and almost died. In the camp she worked as a laborer doing different work with other women. She talks about how that there were no real young children and no women over the age of 30 because older people either died of disease or didn’t work fast enough. When she was sick she thought that it would be easier to die, and she never thought of her parents during the time she was sick because she didn’t want to think of dying and her parents living through the war. She was saved when she was sent to Israel and then lived there for several years. She talks about how the people who think that the war never happened and that these people did not go through hell during the time, she wants them to know that even through this horrible time that the people never lost hope they always believed that they would live through it and be with their families again. After watching these two videos it makes me thankful for the country we live in and the freedom that we have. I know I take for granted the things that would mean so much if we were put in a situation like the people lived like for many years. The videos show a great insight into the lives that the people lived and makes everything you have heard about real.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Ursula Levy-Jason Florez
Jason Florez
Comp-102 10/11/11
Larry Neuburger
Ursula Levy
Ursula Levy was born May 11th, 1935 in Osnabruck, Germany. Her father and uncle were sent to a concentration camp and then died shortly after being released. When she was about 4 her mother wrote to another uncle who lived in America desperately seeking a safe place to send her children. Her uncle wrote back speaking of a connection he had in Holland. So her mother sent her and her brother George who was 5 years older to a convent for undernourished children in Holland. She spent approximately 4 years there and was eventually sent to a concentration camp. For the next couple years she bounced around to 4 or 5 different camps. At one camp a man named Mr. Van Mecklenburg came and visited her on her birthday. He told the Nazis in charge that her father was Catholic and lived in America, which of course was a lie. But this lie was one of the best things that could happen to her because it placed her in a part of the camp for privileged Jews who were treated better than the rest. She explained how one camp was surrounded by electric, barbed wire fences and men with large rifles stood on the inside and outside of these fences all around. She spoke of how she tried to keep to herself and maintain a low profile at these camps, which is one reason she think she survived them. Finally, on April 10th, 1945 she was put on a train in which she spent 13 days on. The train would stop for sometimes days but the Jewish children would always come back to the train, it wouldn’t even cross their mind to escape even though they probably could have if they tried. And then one day she heard someone shouting, “We’re free, we’re free.” At first no one really paid any attention. Then she saw Russian soldiers taking the German soldiers hostage, that’s when she knew the war was over. But she would still have to live with the atrocities she endured during the 2 years she was in centration camps. And now that she was free, she was alone, no friends or family left. She was happy to be free but sad to have nothing and nothing to look forward to. It was as if she was beginning a new life.
“Walking around in a striped suit completely depersonalizes you.”
“A crumb of bread meant the difference between life and death.”
Comp-102 10/11/11
Larry Neuburger
Ursula Levy
Ursula Levy was born May 11th, 1935 in Osnabruck, Germany. Her father and uncle were sent to a concentration camp and then died shortly after being released. When she was about 4 her mother wrote to another uncle who lived in America desperately seeking a safe place to send her children. Her uncle wrote back speaking of a connection he had in Holland. So her mother sent her and her brother George who was 5 years older to a convent for undernourished children in Holland. She spent approximately 4 years there and was eventually sent to a concentration camp. For the next couple years she bounced around to 4 or 5 different camps. At one camp a man named Mr. Van Mecklenburg came and visited her on her birthday. He told the Nazis in charge that her father was Catholic and lived in America, which of course was a lie. But this lie was one of the best things that could happen to her because it placed her in a part of the camp for privileged Jews who were treated better than the rest. She explained how one camp was surrounded by electric, barbed wire fences and men with large rifles stood on the inside and outside of these fences all around. She spoke of how she tried to keep to herself and maintain a low profile at these camps, which is one reason she think she survived them. Finally, on April 10th, 1945 she was put on a train in which she spent 13 days on. The train would stop for sometimes days but the Jewish children would always come back to the train, it wouldn’t even cross their mind to escape even though they probably could have if they tried. And then one day she heard someone shouting, “We’re free, we’re free.” At first no one really paid any attention. Then she saw Russian soldiers taking the German soldiers hostage, that’s when she knew the war was over. But she would still have to live with the atrocities she endured during the 2 years she was in centration camps. And now that she was free, she was alone, no friends or family left. She was happy to be free but sad to have nothing and nothing to look forward to. It was as if she was beginning a new life.
“Walking around in a striped suit completely depersonalizes you.”
“A crumb of bread meant the difference between life and death.”
Testimony 2-Cody Bareford
Ursula Levy was born in Osnabruck, Germany on May 11, 1935. Ursula and her brother, George, lived with their parents until their father was taken to a concentration camp. Ursula's mother began worrying for her children's life and decided to send them to a catholic camp in Holland. While at the camp the priest took a liking to Ursula and her brother and even converted them to Catholic and baptized them with their mother’s permission. The priest also covered for Ursula and her brother by telling others that her father was a Catholic from America. Luckily Ursula was with her brother a majority of the time, although not all the camps she visited allowed males and females together. At one of the last camps she visited she was allowed to be in the male barracks with her brother. Ursula went into detail about her time spent at camps, although she was a rather fortunate Jew compared to most. She describes how she was never abused in any way whatsoever, and nobody ever stole her food, even though it would have been very easy to. She states, “A crumb of bread was the difference between life and death.” In 1945 she was finally freed and went on to do great things with her life. She talked about how she resumed school after being free and eventually went to nursing school in Chicago which took her ten years to complete due to her marriage and having children. Despite the atrocities she faced, Ursula overcame the odds and did great things.
A Film Unfinished
Jason Florez
Larry Neuburger
Comp 102 10/1/11
A Film Unfinished
The way Jews were treated during this time was horrible. Many of them starved to death, others from sickness because they couldn’t afford medical attention. Germans would beat them for unjustified reasons and sometimes just because the person was Jewish. One woman said, “People would throw garbage out their windows because they were too weak to go downstairs.” This really portrays how poor, sick and weak these people were. They didn’t even have enough strength to take their trash out, so there would be piles and piles of trash everywhere outside people’s windows. The woman spoke of other instances, “My mother would send me to the Warsaw Municipal garbage dump, and when I returned home I saw how they were eating what I had brought.” This little girl was going to a garbage dump to pick out trash to bring back to her family because they had nothing else. Her family would eat the old trash that she would rummage through and pick out. This is an excellent depiction of how little Jewish people had. They were forced to live off the leftovers of the people in classes above them. In one scene some German Policemen were pulling all kinds of vegetables and fruits out from under the clothes of Jewish children. The children were attempting to smuggle food in to their starving families. Some of the children caught were taken out and shot and killed.
The way the film staged the scenes with the wealthy Jews and made it look like they were treated like royalty is not surprising. Germans knew that what was happening in Germany would eventually reach the interest of the rest of the world and they anticipated the reaction of those people which is why they made this film. They wanted evidence that Jews were treated not just as well as Germans, but better. It’s a brilliant scheme. It seems there were many secrets even within the German government which is one of the reasons why it fell apart and was eventually taken over. But no punishment would make up for the damage and pain unjustly inflicted on the Jews.
Larry Neuburger
Comp 102 10/1/11
A Film Unfinished
The way Jews were treated during this time was horrible. Many of them starved to death, others from sickness because they couldn’t afford medical attention. Germans would beat them for unjustified reasons and sometimes just because the person was Jewish. One woman said, “People would throw garbage out their windows because they were too weak to go downstairs.” This really portrays how poor, sick and weak these people were. They didn’t even have enough strength to take their trash out, so there would be piles and piles of trash everywhere outside people’s windows. The woman spoke of other instances, “My mother would send me to the Warsaw Municipal garbage dump, and when I returned home I saw how they were eating what I had brought.” This little girl was going to a garbage dump to pick out trash to bring back to her family because they had nothing else. Her family would eat the old trash that she would rummage through and pick out. This is an excellent depiction of how little Jewish people had. They were forced to live off the leftovers of the people in classes above them. In one scene some German Policemen were pulling all kinds of vegetables and fruits out from under the clothes of Jewish children. The children were attempting to smuggle food in to their starving families. Some of the children caught were taken out and shot and killed.
The way the film staged the scenes with the wealthy Jews and made it look like they were treated like royalty is not surprising. Germans knew that what was happening in Germany would eventually reach the interest of the rest of the world and they anticipated the reaction of those people which is why they made this film. They wanted evidence that Jews were treated not just as well as Germans, but better. It’s a brilliant scheme. It seems there were many secrets even within the German government which is one of the reasons why it fell apart and was eventually taken over. But no punishment would make up for the damage and pain unjustly inflicted on the Jews.
Testimony 1-Cody Bareford
David Abrams is a Holocaust survivor from multiple Nazi concentration camps. Mr. Abrams was born on December 8, 1928 in Dej-Romania. Abrams led a fairly normal Jewish life for the most part until he was fifteen. Soon after his bar mitzvah his father passed away, and just a few months later he was taken to the Ghetto. His Ghetto was in a field and families were required to build their own shelter during their stay there. After a month the Jews were quickly rounded up and sent to Auschwitz where they began being separated. People were separated by their ability to work, if they weren’t able to work they were sent to the gas chambers. Mr. Abrams stayed in Auschwitz for approximately a month and was shipped to Mauthausen. He received the number 71,701 after steeping off the train, which was used to identify them. During his time in Mauthausen he began witnessing people stealing from one another and even witnessed a few eating the dead to survive. While being forced to work in Mauthausen David got an infection on the heel of his foot, at first he was skeptical to go get examined, but when he decided he was most likely going to die anyways he went and got checked out by an SS doctor. After seeing David was healthier than most he was admitted to the hospital where he spent two weeks eating and sleeping, which ultimately saved his life. David said he prayed every day at camp asking God that today be his last day at camp and stated, “That was the only thing that kept me going, my faith.”
Alfred Caro
Jason Florez
Comp-102 10/11/11
Larry Neuburger
Alfred Caro
Alfred Caro was born in Sumter, Berlin. He lived a relatively good life up until the early 1930’s. One day he came home and his mother told him that the German police had come there asking questions mainly pertaining to the number of males that were in their family and that one of the males needed to go with the police as part of a political investigation. This obviously frightened Alfred so he hid for a few days with his aunt and another couple days with a close friend. After those few days of hiding he came back home to his family and told his mother and father that he would be the one to go with the German police. This showed great courage and leadership of his family. First they took him to a regular building in Berlin and simply asked him several personal questions. Then after a couple hours they took him and hundreds of other Jewish people to a facility surrounded by fences. He mentioned how he could tell there was no sign of good in the face of the Nazis. Hatred and evil was all he could sense from them. While he was in the “camp” people were being beaten, hit and kicked all around him, but nobody fought back. They were given minimal nutrition such as watery soup and sometimes stale bread. At night they all slept on the floor. He spent approximately 6 weeks in this place. He kept his head down and obeyed orders, never speaking out of line. And then one day, just like that they let him go and told him he was free. He explained how extremely lucky he was to be one of the few to be released. Soon after he returned home he was given a chance to leave Berlin and go to Belgium by train, he took it. He doesn’t know exactly why he was given this chance yet no one else in this family was, but he concluded that it had to have been the fact that he had spent time in a concentration camp and the German government didn’t want him telling people of the atrocities that went on there. He had to say goodbye to his family and friends and wasn’t given much time to do so. Before he knew it, he was alone on his way to a place he knew nothing about.
“The Nazis had so much power and so much madness in them that they were breaking in houses and stealing things and pretending this was all a political investigation.”
“Life in the camp, you had nothing.”
Comp-102 10/11/11
Larry Neuburger
Alfred Caro
Alfred Caro was born in Sumter, Berlin. He lived a relatively good life up until the early 1930’s. One day he came home and his mother told him that the German police had come there asking questions mainly pertaining to the number of males that were in their family and that one of the males needed to go with the police as part of a political investigation. This obviously frightened Alfred so he hid for a few days with his aunt and another couple days with a close friend. After those few days of hiding he came back home to his family and told his mother and father that he would be the one to go with the German police. This showed great courage and leadership of his family. First they took him to a regular building in Berlin and simply asked him several personal questions. Then after a couple hours they took him and hundreds of other Jewish people to a facility surrounded by fences. He mentioned how he could tell there was no sign of good in the face of the Nazis. Hatred and evil was all he could sense from them. While he was in the “camp” people were being beaten, hit and kicked all around him, but nobody fought back. They were given minimal nutrition such as watery soup and sometimes stale bread. At night they all slept on the floor. He spent approximately 6 weeks in this place. He kept his head down and obeyed orders, never speaking out of line. And then one day, just like that they let him go and told him he was free. He explained how extremely lucky he was to be one of the few to be released. Soon after he returned home he was given a chance to leave Berlin and go to Belgium by train, he took it. He doesn’t know exactly why he was given this chance yet no one else in this family was, but he concluded that it had to have been the fact that he had spent time in a concentration camp and the German government didn’t want him telling people of the atrocities that went on there. He had to say goodbye to his family and friends and wasn’t given much time to do so. Before he knew it, he was alone on his way to a place he knew nothing about.
“The Nazis had so much power and so much madness in them that they were breaking in houses and stealing things and pretending this was all a political investigation.”
“Life in the camp, you had nothing.”
Holocaust Testimony #2
The second interview that I listened to was by a man named William McKinney. He was interviewed on 31 March 1997. William was 74 years old at the time he was interviewed. He grew up in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He born in Union town, Pennsylvania. WIlliam McKinney was in the U.S. Army. He was a Sergeant for the army. His duty was to learn Morris code. He was sent to basic and spent most of his days just spending time learning Morris code, drilling over that. William didn’t have one said job, he was a combat supply and did a lot with weapons. One thing that the interviewer spent a lot of time asking about was how William McKinney was treated because he was black. William would travel from city to city in France. He said that the U.S. had a 205 mm that shoot accurately for 23 miles. It was very nerve racking for him knowing the weapon advances and being close to these weapon coming from the other side. When he was in Germany he went to the concentration camps and saw all of the things that were going on first hand. He saw where they would stand the jews on the hillside and shoot them to fall into the pits. There were thousands of Jewish refugees in these concentration camps. In the concentration camps he saw lampshades of human skin. He saw all sorts of people that were dying because of starvation. They were told not to give them K-Rations because they hadn’t had anything solid in so long that if an undernourished person ate it, it would kill them. McKinney saw two boys digging in the trash, he gave them food and they stuck to him for the two days that he was there. William said, “I wanted to adopt them.” They had orphanages prepared for them. The war finally ended on May 8th. When it did he said, “ I felt very exhilarated that the war had ended.”
Quotation: “I saw lampshades made of human skin.” “I felt very exhilarated that the war had ended.”
Quotation: “I saw lampshades made of human skin.” “I felt very exhilarated that the war had ended.”
Eric Wood-Holocaust Testimonies
Interview 1-Alfred Caro
Alfred Caro was born in 1911 in a town named Sampta. Sampta is a small town near Germany’s capital of Berlin. After living in Sampta for a few years, Caro, his parents, and his six siblings moved into Berlin. Caro grew up in Berlin and went to school there. The school that Caro went to for elementary school didn’t split up Jews and gentiles. Caro said that he had Jewish and non-Jewish friends. The only difference in classes between the two groups was that Jews had religious classes. Other than that, Caro said nobody treated him any different than the gentiles. Caro’s family was conservative and regularly attended synagogue early in his life. As the years went by though, the family went less and less. Caro’s dad owned a butcher store, which helped to support the family. Caro was a very active child and participated in boxing and track. All was well in life until 1933 when Hitler came into power. Soon after this occurred, Caro felt uneasiness building toward himself and other Jews. In 1937, Caro was gathered and sent to Sachsenhosen camp. While there, Caro worked and had a rough time. He felt that the number one way he survived, was luck. Caro spoke of times where officers would randomly pick out a few Jews and shoot them. After a long year, Caro was free in July of 1938. However, life did not go back to how it was before camp life. Things continued to worsen and were topped off on Kristallnacht. On “the night of broken glass”, many Jewish businesses had their stores broken into, including the family butcher shop. It was at this point that Caro determined that he had to leave. He moved to Colombia in South America, living there for 16 years. He established a butcher shop in honor of his father. After a few years living in other South American countries, he moved to the United States where his middle sister had escaped to.
“If you weren’t lucky, you were dead”
“Life was never the same after Sachsenhosen”
Interview 2-Henry Laurant
Henry Laurant was born in 1925 in the city of Koenigsberg. Koenigsberg was a city in the eastern portion of Prussia. Laurant grew up in an apartment with his parents and one sister. Laurant’s father was a pediatrician while his mother stayed home with the children. Henry and his sister shared a very close relationship at this time. Laurant had his first Anti-Semitic experience while in kindergarten. After school on his way home, a few kids insulted him because he was Jewish. Laurant was shocked that such young kids could have such hatred. Henry’s father told him that these things would pass over. Unfortunately for Henry, this was not the case. At the age of nine, Henry had to go to the hospital due to illness. Many kids were in the waiting room and after finding out Henry was a Jew, the room erupted with insults. At first doctors tried to calm the situation, but after realizing Henry was a Jew, they let it go. Later that year, Henry and his family moved to Berlin to help his father get more business. In 1938, Kristallnacht occurred and alarmed the family. The day after this event occurred, the family went into hiding down the road at a family friend’s house. Life was not the same as they had to sneak around whenever they had to go somewhere. Henry spoke of days when S.S. officers would march down the streets and require the citizens along the street to give the Hitler salute. Anybody who did not would be beat. Henry refused to give the salute so he would always hide when he heard the chants of the soldiers. A plan was soon hatched to get Henry out of the country. His parents and sister would not be coming along however, as his sister had schooling to finish. Henry spoke about a bad feeling he had that he would never see them again, but remained optimistic. At age 14, Henry obtained a passport and immigrated to England. He never saw his family again. In 1972, he was finally able to make it back to Berlin where he learned of his parents fate through old friends. As they tried to escape, they were captured and taken to Auschwitz, where it was determined that they died.
“When Jewish blood splashes from the knife, things go twice as well” (a chant the S.S. officers echoed as they went down the streets)
“After Kristallnacht, life was pure Hell”
Alfred Caro was born in 1911 in a town named Sampta. Sampta is a small town near Germany’s capital of Berlin. After living in Sampta for a few years, Caro, his parents, and his six siblings moved into Berlin. Caro grew up in Berlin and went to school there. The school that Caro went to for elementary school didn’t split up Jews and gentiles. Caro said that he had Jewish and non-Jewish friends. The only difference in classes between the two groups was that Jews had religious classes. Other than that, Caro said nobody treated him any different than the gentiles. Caro’s family was conservative and regularly attended synagogue early in his life. As the years went by though, the family went less and less. Caro’s dad owned a butcher store, which helped to support the family. Caro was a very active child and participated in boxing and track. All was well in life until 1933 when Hitler came into power. Soon after this occurred, Caro felt uneasiness building toward himself and other Jews. In 1937, Caro was gathered and sent to Sachsenhosen camp. While there, Caro worked and had a rough time. He felt that the number one way he survived, was luck. Caro spoke of times where officers would randomly pick out a few Jews and shoot them. After a long year, Caro was free in July of 1938. However, life did not go back to how it was before camp life. Things continued to worsen and were topped off on Kristallnacht. On “the night of broken glass”, many Jewish businesses had their stores broken into, including the family butcher shop. It was at this point that Caro determined that he had to leave. He moved to Colombia in South America, living there for 16 years. He established a butcher shop in honor of his father. After a few years living in other South American countries, he moved to the United States where his middle sister had escaped to.
“If you weren’t lucky, you were dead”
“Life was never the same after Sachsenhosen”
Interview 2-Henry Laurant
Henry Laurant was born in 1925 in the city of Koenigsberg. Koenigsberg was a city in the eastern portion of Prussia. Laurant grew up in an apartment with his parents and one sister. Laurant’s father was a pediatrician while his mother stayed home with the children. Henry and his sister shared a very close relationship at this time. Laurant had his first Anti-Semitic experience while in kindergarten. After school on his way home, a few kids insulted him because he was Jewish. Laurant was shocked that such young kids could have such hatred. Henry’s father told him that these things would pass over. Unfortunately for Henry, this was not the case. At the age of nine, Henry had to go to the hospital due to illness. Many kids were in the waiting room and after finding out Henry was a Jew, the room erupted with insults. At first doctors tried to calm the situation, but after realizing Henry was a Jew, they let it go. Later that year, Henry and his family moved to Berlin to help his father get more business. In 1938, Kristallnacht occurred and alarmed the family. The day after this event occurred, the family went into hiding down the road at a family friend’s house. Life was not the same as they had to sneak around whenever they had to go somewhere. Henry spoke of days when S.S. officers would march down the streets and require the citizens along the street to give the Hitler salute. Anybody who did not would be beat. Henry refused to give the salute so he would always hide when he heard the chants of the soldiers. A plan was soon hatched to get Henry out of the country. His parents and sister would not be coming along however, as his sister had schooling to finish. Henry spoke about a bad feeling he had that he would never see them again, but remained optimistic. At age 14, Henry obtained a passport and immigrated to England. He never saw his family again. In 1972, he was finally able to make it back to Berlin where he learned of his parents fate through old friends. As they tried to escape, they were captured and taken to Auschwitz, where it was determined that they died.
“When Jewish blood splashes from the knife, things go twice as well” (a chant the S.S. officers echoed as they went down the streets)
“After Kristallnacht, life was pure Hell”
Holocaust Testimony
The first interview that I listened to was by a lady named, Ursula Levy. At the time she was giving the interview she was living in Beverly Hills, California. Ursula was originally from a place in Germany called Asnapahook. She was one of the Holocaust survivors. She has some really interesting stories on what had happened to her, it is amazing that she is still alive. In the beginning she started off talking about her family and her first memories. Her first memory was of her dad being in the hospital, she was about three and a half years old. Her father had gangrene of the legs due to the torture he was put through while he was in a concentration camp. He had been exposed to too much cold. While he was in the hospital Ursula said that her father would even look at them. She believes that he was in a state of unconsciousness. He had passed away due to the gangrene. Ursula was very close to her brother. At first she was separated from her brother in their first camp. Then later they were put back together in the camp. She didn’t know how it happened but her and her brother George were made to sleep in the boys barracks. Ursula had survived the holocaust, on one of the trains she heard someone shouting, “We are free! We are free!” She said that originally nobody had listened to them. Once someone did finally look, they saw the Russians taking the Germans prisoner. They knew at that moment, they were really free. About one-fourth of the people that were on the train actually lived. But, once she did get off the trian her and her brother George got typhus. She said, “it was a miracle that we survived.”
Quotation: “We are free! We are free!” “It was a miracle that we survived.”
Quotation: “We are free! We are free!” “It was a miracle that we survived.”
Holocaust Testimony
Ursula Levy was born in 1935 in Osnabruck, Germany. Her first memory was of her father returning from a concentration camp and that he died in 1939 from gangrene in both legs. Ursula’s mother made the attempt to get Ursula and her brother George out of Germany and to their aunt and uncle in Chicago, IL. A Couple in Holland helped children escape the Holocaust and Ursula and George were hidden in a Dutch Convent in Eersel, Holland. The convent’s purpose was to house malnourished children for six weeks to help them become healthy before they were released again. Ursula, her brother, and three other Jewish children were hidden in the numbers of the Dutch children and lived in the convent. The Germans conquered Holland and replaced all government officials with Nazi officials in 1940. Because of this, the children were discovered and sent a few at a time to concentration camps. Of the five children hidden in the convent only Ursula and her brother survived. In April of 1943 Ursula and her brother were taken to the Vught concentration camp. They were separated for the first time and Ursula was very depressed. George would visit her on Sundays. Ursula described the living conditions as being indescribable and mentioned the brutality of the German guards. At one point she was called to the Commandant’s office and said, “On my eighth birthday we were called to the Commandant’s office, and I thought we were going to be beaten.” They were not, however, and the man that had arranged for them to be placed in the convent was there to visit them. This man told the Commandant a lie stating that they had a Catholic father in Chicago. She described the concentration camps as a place of brutal starvation, disease, and emotional distress. Ursula and her brother were sent to Westerbock Concentration camp in October of 1943-February of 1944 and after that they were sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where they lived in the orphan’s barracks. There she described the starvation and disease but also described the dead being carted away in open trucks. “Every day I saw open wagons piled high with corpses with just their arms and legs dangling over the side without any dignity.” In the spring of 1945 they were given an immunization shot and put on a train. The train circled for 13 days because of the fighting nearby. She did not remember eating and that they drank from puddles whenever they could. Eventually the Russian soldiers overtook the German soldiers and the train. They took the corpses off of the train and piled the bodies beside the tracks. Of 2,600 people on the train only 600 survived. More died from typhus and typhoid after they were freed and sent to an abandoned town. After spending two months with the Stern family they finally returned to the man who had originally helped them hide in the convent and had told the lie to save their lives. Two years after this they were finally sent to live with their aunt and uncle in Chicago, Illinois. Ursula became a nurse later on, married and had two children.
1. “On my eighth birthday we were called to the Commandant’s office, and I thought we were going to be beaten.”
2. “Every day I saw open wagons piled high with corpses with just their arms and legs dangling over the side without any dignity.”
1. “On my eighth birthday we were called to the Commandant’s office, and I thought we were going to be beaten.”
2. “Every day I saw open wagons piled high with corpses with just their arms and legs dangling over the side without any dignity.”
Holocaust Testimony
Brigitte Altman was born in 1924, and in Memel, Lithuania. Her family was very wealthy in the 1900’s but the village they lived in was burned down during WWI and the family lost everything. She was a much pampered child before WWII. She described a very classic idea of Christmas Sleigh rides before the war. She said that she had a very happy childhood. They were on the list to get out of their country, but it was a very long list and unlikely that they would be able to leave. When the Germans occupied Memel in 1939, they left to stay with her gr4andmother in her village. They left everything they owned behind except for some things that they had shipped to her grandmother’s village, but the container caught on fire. They stayed there a month or two and then relocated to a town where she could go to school and her parents could get visas for their family to go to the United States. The soviets took over her country in 1940; her family had already lost all of their financial wealth which was a good thing because the Russians shipped off other wealthy Jewish families to Siberia. They had an opportunity to escape to Canada but could not do it because her mother had a stroke and was to sick to make the trip. When the Germans invaded Kovno the Russians were panicked and left quickly. She said “At least when we lived under the Soviets we knew that our lives were safe but rumors were going around about the German slave and death camps”. At this time they had to wear the Star of David on the sleeves and were not aloud to walk on the sidewalks. She described the Jewish ghetto as very poor, the families often lived in one room. They had nothing to trade for a place to stay; they lived only on the kindness of strangers and finally found an attic space to live in. She worked in a labor brigade; it was assigned to her to work in a green house that catered to high ranking German soldiers. Other work groups had worse conditions. October of 1941 10000 were taken from the ghetto. She remembered waiting in review for the German S.S. sergeant in the square in her father’s work groups that built the airport with her mother and father. “He yielded enormous power, the power over life and death”. She described him eating a sandwich as he separated those who would live and who would die. She talks about after liberation living on a farm with the family of a Russian soldier and that he had tried to rape her many times but each time she was able to fight him off. She remembers a Russian office named Ficelli that became her protector and would not let any harm come to her. He was named as a Russian commandant and left the farm. Two women that knew how good he was to her gave her all the food and drink that they could spare, and set her up with a horse and drive and helped her to get away.
1. “At least when we lived under the Soviets we knew that our lives were safe but rumors were going around about the German slave and death camps”
2. “He yielded enormous power, the power over life and death”
1. “At least when we lived under the Soviets we knew that our lives were safe but rumors were going around about the German slave and death camps”
2. “He yielded enormous power, the power over life and death”
Survivor Testimony #2 - Coy Draheim
Survivor Testimony 2
Coy Draheim
Alfred Caro’s story starts like many other stories for Jews in the 1930’s. He was born in what started as Sampter, Poland but would soon be under German rule and considered part of Germany. Born to a tight knit family of 6 kids, Alfred’s father was a butcher and his mother was a stay at home mom. Unlike most Jews, Alfred led a really good life growing up and never experienced much anti-Semitism. He lived a typical teenage life going to dances playing sports, his favorite being boxing, and going to school. As far as religion went their family was conservative and believed but really only celebrated on the major Jewish holidays. The good life would quickly change however for Alfred in 1933 as the Reistacht was burned by the Nazis and Hitler’s rise to power would begin. Alfred and his family like many Jewish families had no idea of how bad things would truly get. Shortly after Alfred’s father would lose his business and the Nuremberg laws would be instated. Caro would hear of things getting worse for Jews like them being arrested and beaten around this time but not too much attention was paid to it. Shortly after however in his home town Alfred would be arrested and sent to the Zachzenhausen work camp. “So I was perplexed,” is how Alfred would describe being snatched up and taken here. Like many others he felt he had done nothing wrong and was wondering why the Germans were forcing him here. His time in the camp would go from bad to worse quickly. Like many other German work camps starvation was rampant and Alfred would describe the living conditions as horrible. Alfred said that you might get a piece of bread a day with some water, you would sleep on the floor, and the bathrooms or lack thereof were unsanitary. The fence surrounding the camp was used as a boundary and any Jew getting close to it was shot on spot. Alfred would describe the German guards as trained murderers. “Who was friend, who was enemy,” is how Caro would talk about the people inside the camp. With Germans and Jews fighting for survival one would have to watch their back in the camp. Alfred unlike many Jews was lucky though and only in the camp for six weeks. He was released and quickly went to Belgium. Unfortunately for Alfred he had to leave his family and this would be the last time he would see many of them again. He was forced to France shortly after on the run from the Germans and eventually would end up in Columbia, South America where he found a job working for a gold company. Unlike some Alfred kept his conservative faith throughout his life and would attend synagogue during major holidays. He moved to N.Y. City and was married with kids. Sadly for Alfred though he would never receive any news from his family.
Coy Draheim
Alfred Caro’s story starts like many other stories for Jews in the 1930’s. He was born in what started as Sampter, Poland but would soon be under German rule and considered part of Germany. Born to a tight knit family of 6 kids, Alfred’s father was a butcher and his mother was a stay at home mom. Unlike most Jews, Alfred led a really good life growing up and never experienced much anti-Semitism. He lived a typical teenage life going to dances playing sports, his favorite being boxing, and going to school. As far as religion went their family was conservative and believed but really only celebrated on the major Jewish holidays. The good life would quickly change however for Alfred in 1933 as the Reistacht was burned by the Nazis and Hitler’s rise to power would begin. Alfred and his family like many Jewish families had no idea of how bad things would truly get. Shortly after Alfred’s father would lose his business and the Nuremberg laws would be instated. Caro would hear of things getting worse for Jews like them being arrested and beaten around this time but not too much attention was paid to it. Shortly after however in his home town Alfred would be arrested and sent to the Zachzenhausen work camp. “So I was perplexed,” is how Alfred would describe being snatched up and taken here. Like many others he felt he had done nothing wrong and was wondering why the Germans were forcing him here. His time in the camp would go from bad to worse quickly. Like many other German work camps starvation was rampant and Alfred would describe the living conditions as horrible. Alfred said that you might get a piece of bread a day with some water, you would sleep on the floor, and the bathrooms or lack thereof were unsanitary. The fence surrounding the camp was used as a boundary and any Jew getting close to it was shot on spot. Alfred would describe the German guards as trained murderers. “Who was friend, who was enemy,” is how Caro would talk about the people inside the camp. With Germans and Jews fighting for survival one would have to watch their back in the camp. Alfred unlike many Jews was lucky though and only in the camp for six weeks. He was released and quickly went to Belgium. Unfortunately for Alfred he had to leave his family and this would be the last time he would see many of them again. He was forced to France shortly after on the run from the Germans and eventually would end up in Columbia, South America where he found a job working for a gold company. Unlike some Alfred kept his conservative faith throughout his life and would attend synagogue during major holidays. He moved to N.Y. City and was married with kids. Sadly for Alfred though he would never receive any news from his family.
Survivor Testimony #1- Coy Draheim
Survivor Testimony 1
Coy Draheim
WWII changed many things for the Jewish people including the birth name of Joseph Morton. Born Joseph Markowitz in Lodz, Poland, Joseph wanted to leave behind any trace or reminder of the war. Joseph’s story like many other Jew’s was one of growing up in a smaller town in Europe and doing many ordinary things as a child. Joseph had five brothers and one sister, a father working as a tailor, and a stay at home mother. Joseph like many others had suffered small instances of anti-Semitism early on and even heard little bits of Hitler’s rise to power. He never knew how bad it would truly get. “One ear in, the other one out,” is a quote from Joseph when he describes hearing about Hitler’s rise. It was true that many Jews never knew how bad it would get and simply brushed off the news about the Nazis. Joseph’s town was one of the earliest towns in Poland to be occupied, with the war starting on a Wednesday and the Germans invading their town two days later on Friday. Things got bad quickly for Joseph and the Jews in Lodz. They were put to work early as kids cleaning floors and shortly after the occupation a ghetto was established. Life in the ghetto was miserable as one would imagine with starvation rampant. Jews were killed and hung in the market to give a warning to others that their invaders were serious. School was cancelled and wire walls were built to keep them in. This was paradise in fact for Joseph though; he had no idea of what his future would hold. Auschwitz did not exist in his world but it would soon become a reality. “We would kill ourselves before getting to the place,” is what Joseph had to say about his time right before Auschwitz if he would have known how bad it would become. Like many others after him Joseph was loaded onto a cattle car with around fifty other Jews and shipped to Auschwitz. He went through selection like many others and this would be the last time he would see his mother and most siblings. Joseph, his father, and one brother were chosen as acceptable to work and the rest of his family he would never see again as they were taken to their deaths by gas or furnace. Auschwitz was a short stay for Joseph as he was shipped to a German work camp Darkow. He was in good physical shape and could work which allowed him to stay alive. Near the end of his stay he fell ill with typhus and luckily for him the camp was liberated shortly after. Joseph said that if he would have had to go a few more days he would not be here today. Joseph’s experience not only shook his faith in people but his faith in God also. His faith has never gotten back to how it was before the war and probably never will. He moved to the U.S. where he works as a barber and enjoys his life with his wife and 3 kids.
Coy Draheim
WWII changed many things for the Jewish people including the birth name of Joseph Morton. Born Joseph Markowitz in Lodz, Poland, Joseph wanted to leave behind any trace or reminder of the war. Joseph’s story like many other Jew’s was one of growing up in a smaller town in Europe and doing many ordinary things as a child. Joseph had five brothers and one sister, a father working as a tailor, and a stay at home mother. Joseph like many others had suffered small instances of anti-Semitism early on and even heard little bits of Hitler’s rise to power. He never knew how bad it would truly get. “One ear in, the other one out,” is a quote from Joseph when he describes hearing about Hitler’s rise. It was true that many Jews never knew how bad it would get and simply brushed off the news about the Nazis. Joseph’s town was one of the earliest towns in Poland to be occupied, with the war starting on a Wednesday and the Germans invading their town two days later on Friday. Things got bad quickly for Joseph and the Jews in Lodz. They were put to work early as kids cleaning floors and shortly after the occupation a ghetto was established. Life in the ghetto was miserable as one would imagine with starvation rampant. Jews were killed and hung in the market to give a warning to others that their invaders were serious. School was cancelled and wire walls were built to keep them in. This was paradise in fact for Joseph though; he had no idea of what his future would hold. Auschwitz did not exist in his world but it would soon become a reality. “We would kill ourselves before getting to the place,” is what Joseph had to say about his time right before Auschwitz if he would have known how bad it would become. Like many others after him Joseph was loaded onto a cattle car with around fifty other Jews and shipped to Auschwitz. He went through selection like many others and this would be the last time he would see his mother and most siblings. Joseph, his father, and one brother were chosen as acceptable to work and the rest of his family he would never see again as they were taken to their deaths by gas or furnace. Auschwitz was a short stay for Joseph as he was shipped to a German work camp Darkow. He was in good physical shape and could work which allowed him to stay alive. Near the end of his stay he fell ill with typhus and luckily for him the camp was liberated shortly after. Joseph said that if he would have had to go a few more days he would not be here today. Joseph’s experience not only shook his faith in people but his faith in God also. His faith has never gotten back to how it was before the war and probably never will. He moved to the U.S. where he works as a barber and enjoys his life with his wife and 3 kids.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Taylor Graves #2 Survivor Testimony
Henry Mikols was born and raised in Poland. He grew up as a Roman Catholic. Henry grew up in a poor family, as his father was in the silent movie business. Henry had big dreams, weather it was going to America and see all of the movies as he was influenced by great actors at the time such as Charlie Chaplin and Woodrow Wilson, this is why Henry wants to come to the Americas. Henry and his father liked watching the Polish Air force fly their planes doing all of these fancy acrobatic moves. On day, Henry and his father went to the top of the roof to watch the planes to the tricks, all of the German planes fly by making these gigantic noises, both of them saw that the Germans were bombing the field that was by their house. As the Germans took over his town, they took over his house as well and they were told to move out to his father’s sister’s house. From there he went to the store to get some groceries for his family when he had been stopped by a German officer and took henry to a train station to a farm, this would be the last time he would see any of his family. While on the farm, he was being mistreated by being hit and yelled at. From there, he was sent to Brukenvar, one of many concentration camps, because he was taken by German officers for talking poorly about the German government. In the experiments he was involved with the typhoid pills. The German scientists would slip them the pills in their lunch which would be a thick potato salad. Many of the kids in this experiment died, but Henry did not, because of a German scientist would give him a separate pill. This pill would save his life. Eventually the war had ended and Henry followed his dream about going to New York. Henry wrote several letters to New York about his experience that he had during this time in his life, this would let Henry travel to America for free to talk about all of this. He stayed in America as became a carpenter and would eventually become an architect. Henry settled down in New Hampshire with his wife and his daughter.
“We had to sleep like a hearings, legs between legs, the floors were deplorable, and even then we would have a sense of humor, and we set up a line across the walls and whoever won, got a pack of cigerettes”
“I joked with my friend, I hope they serve it to Adolf on a platter” he was talking about the typhoid pills.
“We had to sleep like a hearings, legs between legs, the floors were deplorable, and even then we would have a sense of humor, and we set up a line across the walls and whoever won, got a pack of cigerettes”
“I joked with my friend, I hope they serve it to Adolf on a platter” he was talking about the typhoid pills.
Taylor Graves #1 Survivor Testimony
William McKinney was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, but he grew up in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania with a family of 6 brothers and 4 sisters. They grew up in what William calls a very large with a total of eight bedrooms. His dad worked various jobs while his mother was a housekeeper in the home. His father served in WW1. On June 6, 1943, William McKinney went into the United Stated Military. After being drafted into the military he was sent to Alabama to the base battalion because he scored the highest in his group on the communication tests he had to take going into the military this would be Morse code. After Alabama he went to Mississippi and then to New York and then finally to Liverpool, England. There he said the Germans had an 88 which is huge cannon, and when these cannon struck land you would see bodies fly everywhere in the air and all of the Kernels would cry like babe when firing these cannons and being killed by fellow soldiers that had switched sides. William was then stationed in Belgium at Buchenwald. This is where William saw thousands of Jewish refugees; they wore bluish/grayish pajamas. Williams stated that the refugees would look very mal nourished. While he was there he met a couple boys and during supper, William would go back for seconds and thirds and take it to these boys to eat. He was lampshades that were made out of human skin, pickled hearts and brains in labs. William asked the boys what happened to their families and he got out of them that they watched their parents get burned alive. William at one point in the video says that he wanted to adopt the two boys in the camp that he gave food to. But after the war was over he never saw the boys again but he hopes that the boys made it through the camp alive.
“It is time that we come to our senses and eliminate bloodshed because war is hell. War is horrible.”
“I saw pits where they march’ em up and shoot ’em and fall over in the pit”
“It is time that we come to our senses and eliminate bloodshed because war is hell. War is horrible.”
“I saw pits where they march’ em up and shoot ’em and fall over in the pit”
Zwass and Gipsman - Alicia Amlin
Bruno Zwass was born April 27, 1923 in Breslough, Germany and survived by going deeper and deeper into Poland, staying on the move when necessary in order to keep getting captured. His family wasn’t poor, but it wasn’t rich either, though his parents made sure to send their children to private school to give them the opportunity of the highest education possible, regardless of cost. Zwass mentions that his grandfather was something of a dominant figure in the Jewish community, keeping peace and sorting out quarrels when need be. Zwass explains that he was the black sheep of the family and was frequently punished, often labeled as a disruptive student in class. His father punished by spanking with his hand only; Zwass actually jokes that there weren’t any killings, though I feel as though this could be a subconscious reference to the severity of the Germans’ attacks on the Jews.
Zwass states that he actually began to notice anti-Semitism in 1932 in its earliest stages. Nazis and Communists would clash in the streets on the weekends, and even Jews in the streets were suddenly assaulted without warning. Businesses and office buildings owned by Jews would be covered in graffiti. Zwass and his family did not leave Germany until 1934, a year and a half after the Nazis took over, joining family in a border town in Poland, though it was still considered to be German territory. As the Jews were beginning to be restricted by unjust laws, there were horrifying scenes everywhere on the streets. Germans would force Jewish people in the streets and made to clean the cobblestone or shine the German soldiers’ boots, and they were spit on and laughed at to demean them. If any of the Jews were traditional with long beards, the Germans would cut their beards disrespect and demean them further.
Bruno Zwass seemed to have a more optimistic view on his childhood, though his “wildest ideas” and different thinking may have helped to rescue him when he began to be exposed to anti-Semitism on the early rise and any events as a result. His family eventually had to move deeper into Poland and wound up living with his very optimistic, kind, ever smiling uncle in Tarnuff, who was a very generous man with which he grew a special bond. His uncle may have also given him the emotional strength to survive the holocaust.
“I had the wildest ideas as a child.” “Our world was made to be smaller and smaller.” (when the Jewish restriction laws came into affect)
Fela Gipsman born in Benjing, Poland September 5, 1926. Gipsman has a very contrasting beginning experience during the holocaust. She didn’t notice anti-Semitism as she went to school every day. Her family was very fortunate, capable of sending her to a private kindergarten, and then moving her on to a public school before she wound up in Hebrew school. Her father traveled quite a bit, and she had three brothers. The family owned an olfactory meant for painting. She had no complaints about her simple life, and her family was very closely knit.
During the very first takeover by Hitler in 1939, Gipsman recalls Jews having to wear armbands illustrated with the Star of David to signify that they were Jewish. As it turned out, she did not own an armband, and was therefore taken off the streets by the Germans and brought to an old Polish soldier headquarters where others in a similar bind had to sit on their knees all night before the Germans released them unharmed by morning. However, it was a terrifying experience for Gipsman because no one knew what the Germans would do to them at the time. When the Jewish restriction laws came into action, Gipsman couldn’t go to school anymore, and no one could leave the house; food even became tight despite their financial situation.
In December of 1942, Germans wound up knocking down her door, claiming that they had to have a certain number of girls to bring to the camps. Though her father tried to bribe them to leave her, they took her anyway. Though she started at Blechamme, she was eventually taken to a smaller camp known as Shatslow, where they first took her diamond ring that her parents had given her. The camp consisted only of girls and women, and they all had to work in a factory building barefoot (though they were eventually able to wear wooden shoes). Meals only consisted of either a strange radish-like object or a thin soup with hard bread. Gipsman soon crocheted a pair of slippers for a Czech woman, who gave her sandwiches and information on the war in return. Her parents were even able to send her sandwiches for the first year before being sent to the Ghetto. Despite the sandwiches, the other food made her very sick; none of the women could even have a menstrual cycle because of something in the food that the Germans prepared.
Before liberation, the girls had to dig trenches for the German soldiers to shoot from, army dogs running wild all the while, which kept the girls terrified and unable to stand or even sit up straight. Gipsman and the rest of the women were actually meant to be shipped to Auschwitz six months before the war was to end, but invading Russians had halted it. Gipsman wound up working in the smaller camp for two and a half years before being liberated.
“…we were Jews observing the holidays, not orthodox Jews.” (describing how religious her family was) “…who’s going to come first, the Russians or the Americans?…” (upon being released through the camp gates on day of liberation)
Zwass states that he actually began to notice anti-Semitism in 1932 in its earliest stages. Nazis and Communists would clash in the streets on the weekends, and even Jews in the streets were suddenly assaulted without warning. Businesses and office buildings owned by Jews would be covered in graffiti. Zwass and his family did not leave Germany until 1934, a year and a half after the Nazis took over, joining family in a border town in Poland, though it was still considered to be German territory. As the Jews were beginning to be restricted by unjust laws, there were horrifying scenes everywhere on the streets. Germans would force Jewish people in the streets and made to clean the cobblestone or shine the German soldiers’ boots, and they were spit on and laughed at to demean them. If any of the Jews were traditional with long beards, the Germans would cut their beards disrespect and demean them further.
Bruno Zwass seemed to have a more optimistic view on his childhood, though his “wildest ideas” and different thinking may have helped to rescue him when he began to be exposed to anti-Semitism on the early rise and any events as a result. His family eventually had to move deeper into Poland and wound up living with his very optimistic, kind, ever smiling uncle in Tarnuff, who was a very generous man with which he grew a special bond. His uncle may have also given him the emotional strength to survive the holocaust.
“I had the wildest ideas as a child.” “Our world was made to be smaller and smaller.” (when the Jewish restriction laws came into affect)
Fela Gipsman born in Benjing, Poland September 5, 1926. Gipsman has a very contrasting beginning experience during the holocaust. She didn’t notice anti-Semitism as she went to school every day. Her family was very fortunate, capable of sending her to a private kindergarten, and then moving her on to a public school before she wound up in Hebrew school. Her father traveled quite a bit, and she had three brothers. The family owned an olfactory meant for painting. She had no complaints about her simple life, and her family was very closely knit.
During the very first takeover by Hitler in 1939, Gipsman recalls Jews having to wear armbands illustrated with the Star of David to signify that they were Jewish. As it turned out, she did not own an armband, and was therefore taken off the streets by the Germans and brought to an old Polish soldier headquarters where others in a similar bind had to sit on their knees all night before the Germans released them unharmed by morning. However, it was a terrifying experience for Gipsman because no one knew what the Germans would do to them at the time. When the Jewish restriction laws came into action, Gipsman couldn’t go to school anymore, and no one could leave the house; food even became tight despite their financial situation.
In December of 1942, Germans wound up knocking down her door, claiming that they had to have a certain number of girls to bring to the camps. Though her father tried to bribe them to leave her, they took her anyway. Though she started at Blechamme, she was eventually taken to a smaller camp known as Shatslow, where they first took her diamond ring that her parents had given her. The camp consisted only of girls and women, and they all had to work in a factory building barefoot (though they were eventually able to wear wooden shoes). Meals only consisted of either a strange radish-like object or a thin soup with hard bread. Gipsman soon crocheted a pair of slippers for a Czech woman, who gave her sandwiches and information on the war in return. Her parents were even able to send her sandwiches for the first year before being sent to the Ghetto. Despite the sandwiches, the other food made her very sick; none of the women could even have a menstrual cycle because of something in the food that the Germans prepared.
Before liberation, the girls had to dig trenches for the German soldiers to shoot from, army dogs running wild all the while, which kept the girls terrified and unable to stand or even sit up straight. Gipsman and the rest of the women were actually meant to be shipped to Auschwitz six months before the war was to end, but invading Russians had halted it. Gipsman wound up working in the smaller camp for two and a half years before being liberated.
“…we were Jews observing the holidays, not orthodox Jews.” (describing how religious her family was) “…who’s going to come first, the Russians or the Americans?…” (upon being released through the camp gates on day of liberation)
David Abrams
David Abrams was born 1928 in Romania and as he told his story it was remarkable and depressing at the same time. He was fifteen years old during the time of the Holocaust, and a survivor of Auschwitz. He is a very strong man that never lost faith witch was very inspiring to hear. He began to talk about his life before the war living with his family witch only ten percent of them lived thought the war. He spoke about his birth mother only for a short time cause she had died when he was six days old, so he did not know that much about her. He had four older sisters and three younger brothers that he loved dearly. Then he talked about his father and his Rabi, he was very close to both of them and looked up to them with the highest respect. He went to an all boys Jewish school far away from his house where he had to be careful on the way home cause the gentile boys would pick on him and beat him up cause he was Jewish, even before the war. Although his family was very committed Jews they did not live in a Jewish neighborhood, but they did take months to prepare for Hanukkah and they still knew alot of other Jews. Furthermore as time past the Germans became stronger and started to gather up the Jews, for the ghettos they came and told his family that they had a day to pack up and that they would be moved into the ghettos the next morning. David was able to bring some books and a few clothes in witch he kept even after the Nazis went thought everyone bags. His father luckily had died that January before his family moved into the ghettos David was glad that he did not have to see the living conditions. Then as time passed they were put on to the trains to go to the camps as they were all told that they were going to better conditions and jobs so they willing got on to the trains not knowing they were all going to die. It took three days on the train and by the time they got to the camp a lot of people had already died, and the moment David got off the train he was pulled away from his grandfather and was told they could only see each other on Sundays, but he soon found out that was a lie too when he was told that the smoke coming from the towers were his family members. Some time later him and some other young boys were moved to another camp were they were to dig tunnels but did not know why most likely it was just to work them to death. One of the other Jews that was moved with him was his Rabi's son which became his best friend and they shared everything witched helped them survive. He states that he was very luckily to be the age he was and just being at the right places at the right times and he also gives most of the credit to god for letting him make it out alive. Before the war was over the men in charge of the camp led all of the Jew on a three day walk were they tough they would all die off but David knew him and his friend had to keep going because all the ones that collapsed they would kill at the end of the night. After the three days they woke up to find all the solders gone and he knew the war was over. Then the Americans came took him to a hospital were he was able to eat and sleep, so glad to have survived. But then as he was all better he still did not know were to go or how to get there, and he struggled on his way but made it back to his house were he found his two of his sisters and that was it. eventually he made it to America were he lives now with his wife and children, and still has some flash backs when he walks by a bakery and they have thrown away bread that is still good makes him very sick to think how many people it could have saved. David was an amazing man to have gone through what he did and to have survived.
"A lot a lot off lucky lucky incidents with faithful events that I can attribute that I was able to survive."
"Never give up hope..."
"A lot a lot off lucky lucky incidents with faithful events that I can attribute that I was able to survive."
"Never give up hope..."
Brigitte Altman
Tuesday, October 11, 2011Brigitte Altman
Brigitte Altman was born in 1924 and as I got to watch her testimony about her life during the Holocaust was very interesting. Surprisingly she was a very pleasant woman and had a smile almost the whole time. First she talked about her life before the war witch was very pleasant. She talked about her father as he was a hero and a very committed Jew. He was very "well to do" as she said on many occasions, a business man that took care of his family. Her mother was a very cheerful, and pretty person. I was able to see a picture of her parents at the end and the did seem very wealthy people, and she stated that her mother looked much better in person. Brigitte was a very well educated woman and she talked about her school very fondly, although that was the first place she started to see things change. The other students in her classes that were not Jews would start to ignore her and her Jewish friends and the teachers started to becomes unfriendly. Once her family found out about what was going on in the war they tried very hard to find some way to go to the US or Canada were they had some relatives that has already came over, but waiting for a visa seem to be very difficult. Some time later her family lost everything and was moved to the ghetto into a small attic and her mother became very sick and had a stroke, and died in the ghetto. So it was just her and her father and He knew he had to get Brigitte out so he made arrangements with a friend of the family to hide her outside the ghetto. I find her so lucky she got out when she did cause she never had to go to a death camp. She did not last very long at that host house, and was moved to a farm where were worked along side of Russian war prisoners, and another Jewish girl that she became friends with. Once the Russians took over and the Germans started to retreat she knew the war was over, it took some time but she was able to back together with her father and then to the US were she meet her husband and have three boys and one girl.
"why it is important to give testimony; to document by words and pictures that not only did the Holocaust unfortunately happen but that the so called or suto Holocaust revisements are so blatantly wrong."
when she got to america she states she "wanted to blended in" that was why she did not talk about what happend to her.
Brigitte Altman was born in 1924 and as I got to watch her testimony about her life during the Holocaust was very interesting. Surprisingly she was a very pleasant woman and had a smile almost the whole time. First she talked about her life before the war witch was very pleasant. She talked about her father as he was a hero and a very committed Jew. He was very "well to do" as she said on many occasions, a business man that took care of his family. Her mother was a very cheerful, and pretty person. I was able to see a picture of her parents at the end and the did seem very wealthy people, and she stated that her mother looked much better in person. Brigitte was a very well educated woman and she talked about her school very fondly, although that was the first place she started to see things change. The other students in her classes that were not Jews would start to ignore her and her Jewish friends and the teachers started to becomes unfriendly. Once her family found out about what was going on in the war they tried very hard to find some way to go to the US or Canada were they had some relatives that has already came over, but waiting for a visa seem to be very difficult. Some time later her family lost everything and was moved to the ghetto into a small attic and her mother became very sick and had a stroke, and died in the ghetto. So it was just her and her father and He knew he had to get Brigitte out so he made arrangements with a friend of the family to hide her outside the ghetto. I find her so lucky she got out when she did cause she never had to go to a death camp. She did not last very long at that host house, and was moved to a farm where were worked along side of Russian war prisoners, and another Jewish girl that she became friends with. Once the Russians took over and the Germans started to retreat she knew the war was over, it took some time but she was able to back together with her father and then to the US were she meet her husband and have three boys and one girl.
"why it is important to give testimony; to document by words and pictures that not only did the Holocaust unfortunately happen but that the so called or suto Holocaust revisements are so blatantly wrong."
when she got to america she states she "wanted to blended in" that was why she did not talk about what happend to her.
Survivor Summary #1 Tiffani Calvisky
Tiffani Calvisky
Holocaust Survivor Ursula Levy
Date: March 3rd 1997
Interviewer: Marie Kaurfman
Location: Beverly Hill CA
Ursula Levy was born in Usnerburk, Germany on May 11, 1935. Her father was Marks Levy, her mother was Lucia-May Levy, and her brother was George Levy. The earliest memory Ursula has of her father was when she was three. Her father was in the hospital because he was captured by German Nazi’s and thrown into a concentration camp in November of 1938. He spent a month there being badly beaten and neglected. She says in the interview, “My father would not even look at us while we were at the hospital to visit because he did not want us to see how bad he looked.” After her father died in March of 1939, her mother feared for her two children’s safety. She called her friend, Mr. Vannecklanburg, to help get her children out of Germany. Three weeks later in the spring of 1939, Ursula and her brother George took a train to Holland where they were place in a children’s home called Hifliat. At this home there were a hundred children. Fifty of those children were Dutch, forty-five were part Jewish, and five were full Jewish, including Ursula and her brother. Those Five children were sent to concentration camps. Of the five that were sent, Ursula and George were the only survivors. She spoke about how aweful it was there. Every day she would stand for hours while the Nazi’s would “inspect” every crevice of their living areas. Ursula said, “If they found one wrinkle in our beds, they beat you until death. We saw trucks full of carcasses daily.” Inspite the horrific images she has burnt into her memory, one specific day stood out to her more than any other. On May 11, 1943 she and her brother got called into the office and there was a man there waiting to see her and George. It was Mr. Vannecklanburg. He told the commandant “There’s no way these children are Jewish? Look at their blond hair and blue eyes. They are half catholic. Their father is working in America.” Because of this lie that Vannecklanburg told to them, Ursula and her brother were freed. Today Ursula had grown to teach her children and grandchildren the importance of learning and understanding the holocaust. She taught the essence of helping those less fortunate but it wasn’t until she was about forty that she really began to feel comfort and peace with what happened to her and her brother while they were growing up.
Holocaust Survivor Ursula Levy
Date: March 3rd 1997
Interviewer: Marie Kaurfman
Location: Beverly Hill CA
Ursula Levy was born in Usnerburk, Germany on May 11, 1935. Her father was Marks Levy, her mother was Lucia-May Levy, and her brother was George Levy. The earliest memory Ursula has of her father was when she was three. Her father was in the hospital because he was captured by German Nazi’s and thrown into a concentration camp in November of 1938. He spent a month there being badly beaten and neglected. She says in the interview, “My father would not even look at us while we were at the hospital to visit because he did not want us to see how bad he looked.” After her father died in March of 1939, her mother feared for her two children’s safety. She called her friend, Mr. Vannecklanburg, to help get her children out of Germany. Three weeks later in the spring of 1939, Ursula and her brother George took a train to Holland where they were place in a children’s home called Hifliat. At this home there were a hundred children. Fifty of those children were Dutch, forty-five were part Jewish, and five were full Jewish, including Ursula and her brother. Those Five children were sent to concentration camps. Of the five that were sent, Ursula and George were the only survivors. She spoke about how aweful it was there. Every day she would stand for hours while the Nazi’s would “inspect” every crevice of their living areas. Ursula said, “If they found one wrinkle in our beds, they beat you until death. We saw trucks full of carcasses daily.” Inspite the horrific images she has burnt into her memory, one specific day stood out to her more than any other. On May 11, 1943 she and her brother got called into the office and there was a man there waiting to see her and George. It was Mr. Vannecklanburg. He told the commandant “There’s no way these children are Jewish? Look at their blond hair and blue eyes. They are half catholic. Their father is working in America.” Because of this lie that Vannecklanburg told to them, Ursula and her brother were freed. Today Ursula had grown to teach her children and grandchildren the importance of learning and understanding the holocaust. She taught the essence of helping those less fortunate but it wasn’t until she was about forty that she really began to feel comfort and peace with what happened to her and her brother while they were growing up.
Survivor Malka Klin Boran by Tiffani Calvisky
Tiffani Calvisky
Survivor Malka Klin Boran
Interviewer: Shulamit Bostacky
Date: 6 Jan 1997
City: Pittsburg PA
Malka Klin Boran was born in Warsaw Poland, on January 30, 1927. She was the oldest of her and her brother. Right after she was born her and her family moved to Transtavadla Germany. In her interview she talked about living a relatively normal life up until she was 15 years old. Malka said in the interview, “My fifteenth birthday was the last birthday I had ever spent with my family.” Malka’s family gave her a chain and heart locket as a present that she still has part of it to this day. She said in the interview that she remember exactly what happened on that cold morning that the Germans took over her home and forced them onto the streets. Once outside, the Germans walked Malka and her family to a large market where she and her father and brother were separated from her mother. She never saw her mother again. In 1943, Malka’s father and brother were shot in the back while working on the railroad and she was sent to work at a labor/concentration camp in a steal factory. There she work long hours and lived in all female barracks that were lice and bug infested. They had no blankets or clothing beside what they had on their backs the entire time she was there. Malka met a lady while working that would smuggle little things into the camp and give them to people. She said, “I traded the chain off the locket my parents gave to me for a whole slice of bread and I shared it with my friends.” To this day Kalka says the only thing that kept her alive was God because she didn’t do anything to survive. She wants more than anything for our future generations to see that they is always hope and the possibility for change.
Survivor Malka Klin Boran
Interviewer: Shulamit Bostacky
Date: 6 Jan 1997
City: Pittsburg PA
Malka Klin Boran was born in Warsaw Poland, on January 30, 1927. She was the oldest of her and her brother. Right after she was born her and her family moved to Transtavadla Germany. In her interview she talked about living a relatively normal life up until she was 15 years old. Malka said in the interview, “My fifteenth birthday was the last birthday I had ever spent with my family.” Malka’s family gave her a chain and heart locket as a present that she still has part of it to this day. She said in the interview that she remember exactly what happened on that cold morning that the Germans took over her home and forced them onto the streets. Once outside, the Germans walked Malka and her family to a large market where she and her father and brother were separated from her mother. She never saw her mother again. In 1943, Malka’s father and brother were shot in the back while working on the railroad and she was sent to work at a labor/concentration camp in a steal factory. There she work long hours and lived in all female barracks that were lice and bug infested. They had no blankets or clothing beside what they had on their backs the entire time she was there. Malka met a lady while working that would smuggle little things into the camp and give them to people. She said, “I traded the chain off the locket my parents gave to me for a whole slice of bread and I shared it with my friends.” To this day Kalka says the only thing that kept her alive was God because she didn’t do anything to survive. She wants more than anything for our future generations to see that they is always hope and the possibility for change.
Holocaust Testimony: Henry Mikols - Dane Wommack
Henry Mikols grew up in Poland as a Catholic. His father worked with silent movies. As a child, Henry was very interested with America because of Woodrow Wilson and Charlie Chaplin, who both had big influences in his life. Henry and his father discovered the war was escalating by watching the planes fly overhead. One day, after the Germans moved in, Henry went to pick up bread for his family. On his way there he was stopped by a German officer and it was the last time he ever saw his parents. The officer took Henry to a train station to Germany to work in German farms. While on the farm, he worked for no pay and was fed very poorly. He was eventually arrested for talking bad about the German government (anti-nazi propaganda) and was sent to the work concentration camp "Brukenvar". There, he was placed in an experimental group and given pills and potatoe salad filled with typhoid. His friends all died from typhoid fever, but he survived due to taking a different pill he was offered by a German scientist. When the war ended, the allies had freed him from the camp and he immediately moved to England, eager to pursue his dream to live in America. It was there that he wrote letters to New York and was sponsored to come to America by a free trip and tell his story to American college students. He still had nightmares from the concentration camp, but was able to move on with his life and live happily afterwards, living with his wife and daughter in New Hampshire. He worked as a carpenter and eventually moved his way up to becoming an architect.
"I joked with my friend, I hope they serve it to Adolf on a platter." - Henry Mikols when speaking of the Germans taking their feces and sending it to Berlin when sick with Typhoid fever.
"I don't know why I lived today. Maybe because I'm one of the chosen ones and need to tell my story to all of the world." - Henry Mikols
"I joked with my friend, I hope they serve it to Adolf on a platter." - Henry Mikols when speaking of the Germans taking their feces and sending it to Berlin when sick with Typhoid fever.
"I don't know why I lived today. Maybe because I'm one of the chosen ones and need to tell my story to all of the world." - Henry Mikols
Ursula Levy: Holocaust Survivor Testimony by Levi Thurman
Ursula Levy was born May 11, 1935 in Auslaberg, Germany. Her immediate family included her parents Max and Lucia and her brother George. Her father and her Uncle Ludby, which lived with them, were put the Zuxenhausen concentration camp. Her father died a few months after getting out of the concentration camp and her Uncle Ludby only made it a few days after getting out. Ursula’s father owned a textile business before the war, which had been in the family for generations. The earliest memory that Ursula had was of her father; she remembered him being in the hospital with gang – green of the legs. She also had memories of her mother after her father was gone. One of those memories was of her being frightened of a dog barking outside and her mother comforting her. Ursula said that she has always been afraid of dogs and that this was probably due to the fact that police dogs were prevalent in Germany at that time. Her mother was very worried about her children. She contacted her sister and brother – in – law that lived in the United States to see if they knew of any way to get Jewish children out of Germany. Her brother – in – law (Ursula’s Uncle Joseph) said that you could send Jewish children to safe places Holland. Ursula’s mother ended up sending them to Holland by a train. They stayed in a convent in Holland from April of 1939 until April of 1943 when they were sent to a concentration camp. They lived in concentration camps for two years. Ursula and her brother were part of a group of five out of two hundred children living at the convent to be put in concentration camps. This was because they had Jewish parents on both sides. Out of the five children sent to concentration camps Ursula and her brother were the only ones that lived. They survived because the Priest from the convent lied told their Gustavo that they had a Catholic father from America. He also pointed out that they had fair skin and blue eyes, which was uncharacteristic of most Jews. The lie convinced the Gustavo and they were put into a special group of children. Ursula also pointed out that the Jews in the concentration camps with her watched after her while she was little. She said that they could have easily taken her food, but a starved as everybody was they never did. Ursula was eventually freed by Russian soldiers when they overtook that part of Germany from the Germans.
Quotations
Ursula said, “I mean, I never thought to myself that I am Jewish or that I had any reason to believe that I am Jewish.”
Ursula said, “What my aunt told me was, that um, my mother’s side of the family was much more liberal, not religious at all. Um, my father’s side of the family was more religious. I remember eating matza, I’ve always loved to eat matza and I think it stems from the fact that we ate it at home.”
Quotations
Ursula said, “I mean, I never thought to myself that I am Jewish or that I had any reason to believe that I am Jewish.”
Ursula said, “What my aunt told me was, that um, my mother’s side of the family was much more liberal, not religious at all. Um, my father’s side of the family was more religious. I remember eating matza, I’ve always loved to eat matza and I think it stems from the fact that we ate it at home.”
Anton Mason: Holocaust Survivor Testimony by Levi Thurman
Anton Mason was born April 21, 1927 in present day Romania. His last name at birth was actually Meisner. He was from a very close – knit family. He lived with his parents Maxmillion and Sarah and his brother Samuel and saw his maternal grandparents almost daily. His father was from what is now known as the Ukraine and his mother was from present day Romania. Anton also had a lot of extended family that lived nearby. Anton’s dad was a fur merchant and his grandparents owned a store where they made soap and candles. He came from what he called an upper – middle class family. When it was made illegal for Jews to own businesses Anton’s family started to struggle. They were made to leave home to go to a ghetto in March of 1944. They were forced to live in a house with twelve people in one room. The conditions they lived in were very primitive. The ghetto had about 20,000 people living in it where normally there was around 3,000 – 4,000 people. At this time his family hoped the Russians or the Allies would free them soon. Many Jews including Anton’s family were very surprised at how their Christian friends did not offer to help them while they were in the ghetto. In May of 1944, they were taken from the ghetto to Auschwitz in Poland in cattle cars. They were in the cattle cars for two days and one night. When Anton got there he was separated from his mother and brother. This was the last time he saw them because they were killed within a week. He saw live people put into fire pits at Auschwitz. The allies started bombing Auschwitz Jan 18, 1945. The Germans then took the Jews on a death march. They wanted to get the Jews out of Poland and in to Germany. They marched them to Glybitz which was about 70 miles. Anton estimated that the Germans shot between 1,500 and 2000 people on the death march just because they couldn’t march anymore. They were taken from Glybitz on cattle cars into Germany. This was the first time he was separated from his father. Anton said that about two – thirds of the people sent on the cattle cars died on the way there. His father was one of those people. While Anton was in Germany he was helped by doctors at the concentration camp. The camp used to be a political concentration camp, so there were doctors present. While he was at this camp all the Jews were asked to come forward, but he didn’t because he knew he would be killed. He hid from the Germans in order to survive. He also partly owes his survival to a Frenchman that helped to hide him. On April, 11 1945 the Americans freed Anton and the rest of the concentration camp. The first week for Anton was bittersweet; he was finally free, but he had lost all of his family members.
Quotations
Anton said “My father and my mother never hit me, never, no matter what I did and the one thing that was most important…was my family and I loved my family.”
Anton said “In one instance…I hid in a mountain of dead bodies…I have no place else to go…”
Quotations
Anton said “My father and my mother never hit me, never, no matter what I did and the one thing that was most important…was my family and I loved my family.”
Anton said “In one instance…I hid in a mountain of dead bodies…I have no place else to go…”
Monday, October 10, 2011
Jewish Testimony Response #2
Brigitte Altman was born in a city called Memel. In a place of about 48,000 people, only about 500 citizens were Jews. Her father was a businessman who had both a flour and lumber mill. She remembers both of her parents as being well respected and noble people. The Altman considered themselves to be a German-Jewish family. German was the primary language spoken in their home, however they extensively celebrated the major Jewish holidays. She remembers herself being a spoiled only child who went to an all girls private school and after the German rules began to take effect,she noticed a change in attitude from both teachers and friends alike. Brigitte's first awareness about the Nazis came from her very own kitchen table. Her parents would discuss the events that had taken place with their family members and knew they had to start making efforts to escape to the US or Canada. Despite this though, she explained that the family's daily activities continued on as any other day. They chose to leave their home and stay at a grandmothers home in 1939, where they stayed for 1-2 months. The family again relocated to Cogno, where Brigitte was enrolled in a Yiddish speaking school. Their family, at this time, had not been effected by the Soviet takeover. In June of 1941 the Germans marched in and established the racial edicts. The family was taken to a ghetto, which was the smallest and poorest part of the town. They were given no running water or sanitation and were forced to wear the yellow star of David. While living in the ghetto, she was given a job at a nursery/greenhouse. Luckily, she says, her boss was a jewish horticulturist. She considered herself very lucky. Brigitte explains that on Oct. 1941, the people of the ghetto were brought in for inspection and later directed to the left or the right. Eventually 10,000 people were taken away to be killed. She says she doesn't know how but some how here family was directed to the safe line. Brigitte's father wanted to find a way to allow her to escape, so through various messages he was able to contact a former gentile bookkeeper named Meta Dorloff. She eventually devised a plan with her husband to contact a freedom group that helped various people from the ghetto escape. The leader of the freedom group bribed the German gaurd to let her go free. When she got out, they crossed a river and met up with the book keeper. She kept Brigitte safe at her house, allowing her to work as her maid, until it became unsafe. Eventually her and her husband had to send Brigitte to a family farm where she helped attend to the land. While working on the farm she came across another jewish girl that was about six years old. She promised that she would take care of the little girl and never broke her promise. Brigitte explained that she was nearly raped many times at the farm, by a boy that worked there as well. Luckily though she was able to get away each time. The war finally ended and the area was liberated by a Russian solider. Brigitte and the little girl hitchhiked back to Covono where they came upon various family members or family friends. Although she lost contact with her family during the war, her and her father immigrated to the US in 1949. She later met her husband in 1951, where they were married in chicago. They raised a family of 3 sons and 1 daughter in Fortworth, Texas. She says that she was so busy with being a mother and wife that she didn't have time to look back on what all had happened to her. She said she wanted to blend into American culture as quickly as she could.
Quotes: "How they (holocaust revisionists) continue and posion so many minds with their vicious propaganda."
"There was very, very strict and ruthless guidelines effecting the Jewish population. That handwriting was on the wall and very easy to read."
Quotes: "How they (holocaust revisionists) continue and posion so many minds with their vicious propaganda."
"There was very, very strict and ruthless guidelines effecting the Jewish population. That handwriting was on the wall and very easy to read."
Jewish Testimony Response #1
David Abrams was born in Dej, Romania on December 8, 1928. He was the son of a baker and a stepmother, both of which he adored deeply. David also had 4 older sisters and 3 younger brothers. The Abrams family, whose real last name was Abraham, were a traditional Jewish family. Their week consisted of typical preperations in order to prepare for the Sabbath on Sunday. His family was taken to a ghetto that was set up in a wooded area and each family was allowed to set up a shelter in a 10x12 ft area. They had to share very small amounts of food with large numbers of people. By this time David's father had passed away and he said that his mother thanked God for letting his father not be able to see them like that. After a month in the ghetto, the family was taken to Auschwitz. He explained that him and his family were told that they were going to be taken to a place away from the gentiles (non Jewish people), where they could have jobs and would be able to be with their families. The Germans gave these innocent people false hope and made their fates seem no so tragic. When they arrived, all of the abled bodies were moved to the left and all of the elderly, women, and children were moved to the right. The people who were in the right line were all taken to be killed. David said that that was the last time he saw his family. He furthered explained that upon arriving at the camps the people were stripped naked and searched, in all areas of their bodies, for hidden objects. They were then shaved from head to foot, given a shower, and given prison clothes. The prisoners were taken to their barraks, which Abrams thought was a luxury hotel compared to the conditions of the ghetto, and were forced to share 1 plate of food with 5-6 people. Throughout his time here, he said that each day people were randomly chosen out of a line up and taken to be killed off. His stay did not last long and he was eventually taken to Modhousen where he was assigned a work detail. While at Modhousen they were given the numbers that they had to wear on their uniforms; this was the way that they were identified as opposed to being called by name. Abrams was again moved to a camp called Gouzen. Throughout the testimony, Abrams constantly mentioned that God willed him to survive. While in this camp he watched many children die and witnessed people being treated as though they were nothing but animals. Eventually the camps were liberated and, with some time and struggles, Abrams was able to make it back to his home. He constantly searched for family members that survived but only knew of the sisters that had immigrated years before the war. He finally made it to the US in 1949, where he joined the army and was deployed to Korea. Abrams met his wife in 1954 and they later had 2 daughters. He said that he never talked about his experiences in the camps. He also said that although he never spoke about the events, they always filled the spaces of his mind. Abrams said there were 2 life lessons that he will carry with him forever: 1.) Hope. the fact that he never gave up hope made up 50% of his survival. 2.) Gratitude. While in the camps he continuously gave thanks for God enabling him to survive one more day and he knew that God had good things in store for him eventually. Although David Abrams had to endure a nightmare, he has still managed to find happiness and peace in his life.
Quotes: "They shipped us off to Auschwitz to be disposed of as though we were nothing more than some contaminated waste."
" By the grace of God...I managed to survive the most brutal, the most cruel, the most inhumane treatment of human beings in the history of our planet."
Quotes: "They shipped us off to Auschwitz to be disposed of as though we were nothing more than some contaminated waste."
" By the grace of God...I managed to survive the most brutal, the most cruel, the most inhumane treatment of human beings in the history of our planet."
Holocaust Testimony: Kristine Karen - Dane Wommack
Dr. Kristine Karen was born in Poland, 1939. She describes her childhood as very extravagant, living in a modern apartment before the war, with two bathrooms and a fancy piano her mother played. In a thick accent she says “I was very happy girl!” Her father had a P.D in history and kept up with current events very frequently. It was this reason he was able to help them escape when Germany began to occupy Poland. When the Nazi's moved in, Kristine Karen and her family were forced to move out of their nice apartment and spent the next few years moving around to overcrowded apartments with other Jewish families. During this time, Kristine met a nice Nazi general in charge of keeping the area they lived in under watch. He told her she reminded him of his daughter he left home in Germany and brought her chocolate and other sweets to help her feel better. However, soon after, the families were starting to be evacuated out of the ghetto. Kristine's dad knew they had to get out of there and talked to a man named Savoy. Savoy informed him, that Kristine's family could hide in the sewers until the war was over, but it would cost them a lot of money. Kristine's dad gladly agreed to this and started to move his family into the sewers. They lived there with 10 other Jewish people for 14 months, eating bread once a day while keeping the rats away and telling each other jokes to keep each other happy. After 14 months, the family emerged from the sewer and went back to their daily lives with the war being over. However, Kristine was still teased for being a Jew during school and as a result, had to fool everyone in her class that she was a Christian. When she tried to find Savoy, the man who saved her and her family and hid them in the sewers, she discovered he was killed by a drunk driver while riding his bicycle with his daughter. He pushed her out of the way and suffered the injuries as a result. "His blood was dripping through the manhole. My mother always said he was an angel sent to save our lives." Kristine eventually graduated from a renown college in Israel and became a dentist in the United States, married to her husband, who was also a holocaust survivor who happened to live across the street from her as a child.
"I was very happy girl." - Kristine Karen
"His blood was dripping through the manhole. My mother always said he was an angel sent to save our lives." - Kristine Karen
"I was very happy girl." - Kristine Karen
"His blood was dripping through the manhole. My mother always said he was an angel sent to save our lives." - Kristine Karen
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Holocaust Testimony #2- Elana Carson
Interview with Malka Baran
Malka was a young Jewish girl when the holocaust first started. She was already fairly poor, this clearly showed by the fact that her family of 4 was living in a one bedroom apartment with a small kitchen and no living room. Malka was 15 and her Brother was 13 when their entire family was put on a train by the Nazi’s. When they arrived at a metal factory they split up her family. Her Father and Brother were sent one way and immediately shot in the back before even arriving at the factory or a camp. Malka was sent a different way, and her Mother was taken away as well. Malka was all alone and forced to stay in Metallula which was a metal factory where she would clean the ammunition shells. She was then taken to Hosick which was another labor factory and this time she sorted damaged shells. She was passive and didn’t cause any trouble; this helped to keep her alive throughout her entire journey. Another way she survived was that Malka was wearing a coat when they had gotten captured, that coat kept her warm throughout her journey. In the labor camp Malka met a soldier who happened to be Jewish; he would bring her and her best friend food daily. The soldier wanted to take Malka back and marry her, but quickly got re-allocated. So, he sent a lieutenant with a note telling the girls to follow him. They took a leap of faith and followed the lieutenant safely out of the factory. He then drove them in a truck for days, fed them and took fantastic care of them, making sure that they would arrive safely for the soldier. The soldier rescued her and she was set free in the city. After that she got a job in a photo booth and then went to seminary school while working for an elderly Russian woman. She is a strong woman and one of the few that survived the tragedy, called the holocaust.
“I saw babies thrown against the wall. The Germans would then pick up the crushed babies and throw them on machines”- Malka Baran
“The first time I cried is when I found myself free and realized I had no family”- Malka Baran
Malka was a young Jewish girl when the holocaust first started. She was already fairly poor, this clearly showed by the fact that her family of 4 was living in a one bedroom apartment with a small kitchen and no living room. Malka was 15 and her Brother was 13 when their entire family was put on a train by the Nazi’s. When they arrived at a metal factory they split up her family. Her Father and Brother were sent one way and immediately shot in the back before even arriving at the factory or a camp. Malka was sent a different way, and her Mother was taken away as well. Malka was all alone and forced to stay in Metallula which was a metal factory where she would clean the ammunition shells. She was then taken to Hosick which was another labor factory and this time she sorted damaged shells. She was passive and didn’t cause any trouble; this helped to keep her alive throughout her entire journey. Another way she survived was that Malka was wearing a coat when they had gotten captured, that coat kept her warm throughout her journey. In the labor camp Malka met a soldier who happened to be Jewish; he would bring her and her best friend food daily. The soldier wanted to take Malka back and marry her, but quickly got re-allocated. So, he sent a lieutenant with a note telling the girls to follow him. They took a leap of faith and followed the lieutenant safely out of the factory. He then drove them in a truck for days, fed them and took fantastic care of them, making sure that they would arrive safely for the soldier. The soldier rescued her and she was set free in the city. After that she got a job in a photo booth and then went to seminary school while working for an elderly Russian woman. She is a strong woman and one of the few that survived the tragedy, called the holocaust.
“I saw babies thrown against the wall. The Germans would then pick up the crushed babies and throw them on machines”- Malka Baran
“The first time I cried is when I found myself free and realized I had no family”- Malka Baran
Holocause Testimony #1- Elana Carson
Interview with William McKinney
William McKinney was born in Union Town, PA but grew up in Pittsburg, PA. His family had a total of 10 kids and lived in a fairly large house with 8 bedrooms. He was drafted into the U.S. army at age 18 and guarded the command post. He was first stationed in Reardon, Belgium right outside of Auckland, Germany. At one point in the interview, he talked about the size of the Nazi’s guns; he said that some of them got up to 205 Millimeters and shot 23 miles. In the interview William was asked what he saw in the concentration camps. Through tears, William talked about the horrible conditions, the starving children, the Jews dressed in bluish/grayish pajamas as well as the prisoners of war from other countries. He stated that he saw pickled hearts and brains in the laboratory as well as lampshades made from human skin. Finally he was transferred to camp Buchenwald to watch over the ammunition of the U.S. army; while he was there he tried to talk to some of the Germans about what was going on in the camps. He said that most of them turned a deaf ear and didn’t want to know what was happening. They were too prideful about their country and didn’t want to believe what was actually going on. William McKinney ended up meeting two young boys at the camp in Buchenwald. The boys were five years old and seven years old and were starving to death, they had told William that they had watched their parents burn alive. He was able to give them his daily portion of food before he ended up getting sent home. He said he never knew what happened to those boys, but he hopes that they would remain alive because he was able to share what he had with them.
Quotes by William McKinney
“Until this day, I believe there is military strategy on the high command of the U.S. army.”- William McKinney
“It is time to lend every effort on ones being in trying to establish peace and harmony throughout communities and the United States of America and throughout the world, without bloodshed. It is time that we come to our senses and eliminate bloodshed because war is hell. War is horrible.”- William McKinney
William McKinney was born in Union Town, PA but grew up in Pittsburg, PA. His family had a total of 10 kids and lived in a fairly large house with 8 bedrooms. He was drafted into the U.S. army at age 18 and guarded the command post. He was first stationed in Reardon, Belgium right outside of Auckland, Germany. At one point in the interview, he talked about the size of the Nazi’s guns; he said that some of them got up to 205 Millimeters and shot 23 miles. In the interview William was asked what he saw in the concentration camps. Through tears, William talked about the horrible conditions, the starving children, the Jews dressed in bluish/grayish pajamas as well as the prisoners of war from other countries. He stated that he saw pickled hearts and brains in the laboratory as well as lampshades made from human skin. Finally he was transferred to camp Buchenwald to watch over the ammunition of the U.S. army; while he was there he tried to talk to some of the Germans about what was going on in the camps. He said that most of them turned a deaf ear and didn’t want to know what was happening. They were too prideful about their country and didn’t want to believe what was actually going on. William McKinney ended up meeting two young boys at the camp in Buchenwald. The boys were five years old and seven years old and were starving to death, they had told William that they had watched their parents burn alive. He was able to give them his daily portion of food before he ended up getting sent home. He said he never knew what happened to those boys, but he hopes that they would remain alive because he was able to share what he had with them.
Quotes by William McKinney
“Until this day, I believe there is military strategy on the high command of the U.S. army.”- William McKinney
“It is time to lend every effort on ones being in trying to establish peace and harmony throughout communities and the United States of America and throughout the world, without bloodshed. It is time that we come to our senses and eliminate bloodshed because war is hell. War is horrible.”- William McKinney
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
"A Film Unfinished" Response by Dane Wommack
I felt this film was a very strong and realistic portrayal of how the Jews were treated during World War 2. Hearing what all the survivors had to say was also very interesting and sad to hear. I think one of the biggest things we can learn from the holocaust and from this film, is to just love one another and treat everyone as best as we can, even in hard times. When life gets tough, we often try to find scapegoats to place the blame on. As humans, we've done this a lot in the past, from segregation in the early to mid-1900s to the harsh treatment of illegal immigrants in our country now. It's human nature to repeat our mistakes and continue to make them, but I think it's best to make a strong effort in going against it.
I also found it very sad that the Jews had to bury their own and carry out a lot of the labor in carrying the bodies. This would be very morbid for anyone to have to attend to their own group of people in such a manner. Desensitizing themselves and ignoring others in trouble would be one of the only ways to cope with such an event. In order to take care of others you have to take care of yourself first. Normally seeing a child’s body on the street would have some effect in people passing by, but in a place of such poverty and suppression there’s not a whole lot one can do.
Overall, despite it being a very depressing way for me to start my morning, it was educational and necessary in teaching sympathy and to spark the passion to prevent such things from happening in the future, should that need arise.
A Film Unfinished-Cortney Hazelrigg
“A Film Unfinished”
Watching the movie A Film Unfinished it reminded me how lucky we are to live in a Nation with laws and freedom. It reminded me how thankful we all should be and how we take for granted the little things in life that make a world of a difference. There is no way that I could have lived back then and no way I could have went through what those innocent people went through all because someone did not like them. Watching the film makes you see things that you have only been told about for so long when going through school. Seeing the people who were starving to death and seeing the kids more so than the adults hit me hard, how people could be so mean and have no compassion for the people suffering. It was shocking that people who were looking for Hitler at the time amazed me with how they wanted to try to show how good the people and kids had it in the Ghetto when really there was no way the people were living any kind of life. Seeing how many people were confined to one area and to see how many people were living on the streets and to see the how when someone dies their family just leaves them on the street when they have passed away. The film helped show what the people really lived like before they were sent to the camps to die, which helps to make connections with what we all have heard for years in school.
Watching the film I am sure took us all back and made all of us realize how lucky we are to live in a country that we live in. With all the freedom that we have we all take for granted what freedoms we have. Living back then I could not imagine going through what those people had to go through, I could not imagine starving to death and living in such confined spaces. We are all so lucky to live in the United States and every now and then we need to be reminded how lucky we are.
"A Film Unfinished"
After watching “A Film Unfinished” I really didn’t think that they portrayed how the Jews lived very well. They barely scratched the surface on what all really was taking place. I didn’t feel like they were showing all of what was going on that really made the holocaust the holocaust. They emphasized a lot on the people who were starving. Which, this was a major part of what was going on, not many Jews were properly nourished during this time. But, they really didn’t mention about the Germans coming in taking all the Jew’s jewelry, and most anything of value. They did portay some of it and what they did show, I believe they did a fairly good job with. But, some of what they were showing I didn’t really understand why they were showing it to us. There were plenty of random clips on people just walking down the street and the only thing you would notice out of the ordinary was the cable car. It seemed like they showed that scene about 10 times. This video really does make you feel bad about what was going on to all the people in the holocaust, but this video didn’t begin to show how bad it got in my opinion. One thing that really struck me was when people would walk by and throw bread between them just to watch them fight over it. It was things like that, that I really noticed and felt bad about. They did do a good job showing how people would die and be left on the street for a while like road kill. So there were some things that they really did a good job with and there were some things, in my opinion, that I didn’t think they did such a good job with.
"A Film Unfinished" - Levi Thurman
In the film I learned that Nazis used many different approaches in the attack on the Jewish people. They used propaganda to convince the German people persecuting the Jews was the right thing to do. The Nazis also used ghettos as a way to starve and demoralize the Jews. They also made staged films to show how well the Jewish people were living. The films showed the Jews wearing fancy clothing, eating expensive food, and living in luxurious houses. The films also showed the rich Jewish people ignoring the poor Jewish people as if they only cared about themselves. The Jewish funerals were also staged; funerals were made to look much more luxurious than they actually were. The ghettos were used by the Nazis to consolidate the Jews in one place, starve them, and demoralize them. The Warsaw ghetto in the film had approximately one and a half million Jewish people living in it. The conditions were very overcrowded. There were often cases when several families lived in the same house. One whole family would live in a bedroom while another family would live the living room. Food was also scarce in the ghettos. Almost everyone in the film appeared to be malnourished. Many people died from starvation; the bodies were often left on the street for several days. The bodies were hauled off in hand – pushed carts and eventually buried in mass graves. The bodies would often accumulate, so they were left piled up until there was time to bury them. The people that were fortunate enough to avoid starvation became so accustomed to corpses lying everywhere they seemed to grow immune from them. They were living in such terrible conditions that they started to lose what it meant to be human. The sympathy that all human beings have was being taken away from them by the Nazis.
Response to "A Film Unfinished" - Alicia Amlin
Alicia Amlin
Mr. Neuburger
Eng. Comp 102-102
5 October 2011
“A Film Unfinished”
In “A Film Unfinished,” it seemed as though the Germans were attempting to make Jews look like pompous, relentless beasts that did not care about what Hitler claimed was their fault. Staged funerals and dinner parties were used to make the Jews seem as though they lived in the lap of luxury, but it did not hide the true, vulgar attempt to make the Jews look like unstoppable monsters. In reality, the Jews suffered in the Ghettos, no matter how rich or poor they were. They were prisoners because of one man seeking to rise to ultimate power seemed to have found a way up the ladder; it didn’t matter who he hurt, just so long as he got up. Corpses lining the streets and cold, silent stares at the cameras could only deliver one message: fear. When thousands of people are forced to live in one tiny space without money or food, a bad situation makes a turn for the worst. No one had a choice other than to suffer, and so they suffered while also trying to avoid getting beaten or shot simply for stepping to the wrong side at the wrong time near any of the Germans. Though the film showed the drastic contrast between both rich and poor Jews, it all seemed to collectively fall together into the same pool of fear and the looming presence of death. Despite the clear tendencies to use this film for propaganda against the Jews, it serves more as a window into a time of unfathomable terror. Though it was meant to lie, the film was greatly informative as it gave viewers a glimpse of many that did not deserve their fate as they waited to be ushered to treacherous concentration camps, and then, ultimately, their deaths.
A Film Unfinished - Taylor Graves
A Film Unfinished
After watching the movie A Film Unfinished I felt a little uneasy. I say this because some of the things like all of the dead bodies just lying on the street and they just leave them there until the Germans picked the bodies up and puts the on the cart with 40 more corpses. I had to think about how Hitler, and asked myself, how can someone do this to people and be okay with. Hitler must have been a “Grade A” Psycho; someone full of hatred and no spirit killing innocent people. The people in the Ghettos, I feel as if they were treated as dogs instead of humans. In the film it shows us the difference of the rich Jews compared to the poor Jews, and shows us their lives. When watching the trailer after I watched the movie it says all of the scenes were staged for a more “natural effect”. I feel as if since they are staged, we aren’t getting the real depth as to what we could gain as if we saw the real thing what really happened and if it was worse or not.
I think that since this was a major thing that was going on to the Jews, I just feel like it’s the duty of the human population or as a species to help them and fight for the Jews and get them out of this turpentine. The Jews, being very dehydrated and very malnourished, would not be able to take on the whole German clan. I think that it was very inhumane and it shows us how wrong decisions can go and how big they can escalate and cause problems for a whole group of people. Considering all of this, it just makes me that Nations did not come together and help these people sooner, instead of letting me die. This is how I personally felt about the film called A Film Unfinished.
"A Film Unfinished"-Eric Wood
When people here about the Holocaust, concentration camps are usually the first thing brought up. Not all the tragedy happened at camps though. Ghettos such as the Warsaw ghetto were a less known about horror. The movie “A Film Unfinished” is a film documenting life at the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi regime. The film is an emotional montage of images from the life of Jews at the time. From corpses lying on the streets to extremely malnourished Jews, life was terrible at the Warsaw ghetto. Not many people survived the terrible environment, but a few survivors who did, give their take on the situation. The sorrow in the voice of those interviewed shows just how bad it was. The ghetto was set aside for Jews to be separated from the public. They were not set up to prosper though. They were malnourished and left for dead. It was sad to see corpses lining the streets as people walked by. Whenever the bodies were eventually taken from the street, they were thrown in a hole filled with other corpses. It is hard to believe that this actually happened and went on for quite a while. How this could go on for so long is beyond me. Hitler was definitely one sick man and those who followed his lead were just as bad. The filming also gave off a bit of an eerie feeling. There were cameramen watching and recording but none of them did anything to stop the situation. The Jews knew they were being recorded and every once in a while, made eye contact with the camera. The despair in their eyes made me angry at the situation as a whole. All in all, the film really showed how bad things got and makes me realize how bad things can get.
Review of "A film unfinished"- Elana Carson
“A film Unfinished” Review by Elana Carson
“A film unfinished” is a Nazi propaganda film of the Warsaw Ghetto. It was discovered by German archivists after the war and was used by scholars and historians as a flawed but authentic record of ghetto life. Shot over 30 days in May 1942 this hour and a half long silent film showed random scenes of Jews enjoying various luxuries with images of profound suffering. The film was supposed to be used to show the world what a good life the Jews had. However, most of the luxurious scenes were staged and the footage of the true pain and anguish was meant to be cut out of the film later on. The footage really shows the true misery that the Jews went through. Most of the clips show starving, homeless people with no hair and a lack of clothing. The people are dirty, disgusting and hopeless, the children are begging for food and being held at gunpoint when trying to sneak a small bite. The German film crew that was sent to tape this footage of the Jews had no idea as to why they were even filming it. But even if they knew what the true intent of this film was, would it have stopped them? Throughout the movie there are 5 survivors giving a commentary of what they remember about the Ghetto. That was very impacting to hear the truth come straight from these survivors. Throughout the movie, I was cringing at the sight of naked men and women being forced at gunpoint into a ritual bath; the Nazis paying no attention to the horrid living qualities of the Jews and the millions of lives that were lost throughout the Holocaust. The silence of the movie was very powerful. The fact is that you don’t need words or sound to see the hurt, anguish, and suffering of these people. The movie will bring you to tears as you travel back to the sinful nature of man and just how evil we can be to our brothers and sisters. In this movie, the survivors really spoke for us all.
“A film unfinished” is a Nazi propaganda film of the Warsaw Ghetto. It was discovered by German archivists after the war and was used by scholars and historians as a flawed but authentic record of ghetto life. Shot over 30 days in May 1942 this hour and a half long silent film showed random scenes of Jews enjoying various luxuries with images of profound suffering. The film was supposed to be used to show the world what a good life the Jews had. However, most of the luxurious scenes were staged and the footage of the true pain and anguish was meant to be cut out of the film later on. The footage really shows the true misery that the Jews went through. Most of the clips show starving, homeless people with no hair and a lack of clothing. The people are dirty, disgusting and hopeless, the children are begging for food and being held at gunpoint when trying to sneak a small bite. The German film crew that was sent to tape this footage of the Jews had no idea as to why they were even filming it. But even if they knew what the true intent of this film was, would it have stopped them? Throughout the movie there are 5 survivors giving a commentary of what they remember about the Ghetto. That was very impacting to hear the truth come straight from these survivors. Throughout the movie, I was cringing at the sight of naked men and women being forced at gunpoint into a ritual bath; the Nazis paying no attention to the horrid living qualities of the Jews and the millions of lives that were lost throughout the Holocaust. The silence of the movie was very powerful. The fact is that you don’t need words or sound to see the hurt, anguish, and suffering of these people. The movie will bring you to tears as you travel back to the sinful nature of man and just how evil we can be to our brothers and sisters. In this movie, the survivors really spoke for us all.
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